Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s BookLectures On the Historyof Philosophy:

Introduction to the History of Philosophy

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, pp. 245-246Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany XIITranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:Kevin GoinsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
	  perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. 
	  Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that 
	Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible 
	where they were located in the original manuscript.

HEGEL. LECTURES ON THE HISTORYOF PHILOSOPHY, WORKS, VOL. XIII

A very pro-found correctcomparison!!Every shadeof thought =a circle onthe greatcircle (a spi-ral) of thedevelopmentof humanthought ingeneral

...“I maintain that the sequence in thesystems of philosophy in history is thesame as the sequence in the logical deduc-tion of the Notion-determinations of theIdea. I maintain that if the fundamentalconceptions of the systems appearing inthe history of Philosophybe entirely di-vestedof that which pertains to theiroutward form, their relation to the partic-ular and the like, the various stages inthe determination of the Idea itself arefound in its logical Notion.”

“Conversely in the logical progressiontaken for itself, there is, so far as its prin-cipal elements are concerned, the progres-sion of historical manifestations; but it isnecessary, of course, to be able to discernthese pure Notions in what the historicalform contains.” (43)

P. 56—ridicule of the chasing after fash-

ion,—after those who are ready “auchjedesGeschwöge(?) für eine Philo-sophie auszuschreien.”[2]Pp. 57-58—excellent for strict historicity in thehistory of philosophy, so that oneshould not ascribe to the ancients a“development” of their ideas, whichis comprehensible to us but whichin fact was not present in the ancients.

Thales, for example, did not possessthe conception άρχή[3](as aprin-ciple), did not possess the concept ofcause...

...“Thus there are whole nationswhich have not this concept” (of cause)“at all; indeed it involves a greatstep forward in development....” (58)

Extremely lengthy, empty and tedious on the relationof philosophy to religion. In general, an introduction ofalmost 200 pages—impossible!!

[1]Hegel,Werke, Bd. XIII, Berlin, 1833.—

[2]“to call everytwaddle(?) a philosophy”—Ed.

[3]beginning—Ed.

---

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s BookLectures On the Historyof Philosophy:

Volume XIII. Volume I of The History of Philosophy.History of Greek Philosophy

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, pp. 247-268Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany XIITranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:Kevin GoinsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
	  perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. 
	  Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that 
	Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible 
	where they were located in the original manuscript.

VOLUME XIII.VOLUME I OFTHE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY.HISTORY OF GREEK PHILOSOPHY

“Anaximander (610-547 B. C.) supposesman to develop from a fish.” (213)

...“Hence the determinations are dry,destitute of process, undialectical, and sta-tionary....” (244)

This refers to the general ideas of thePythagoreans;—“number” and its sig-nificance, etc. Ergo: it is said in regardto the primitive ideas of the Pythago-reans, their primitive philosophy; their“determinations” of substance, things,the world, are “dry, destitute of process(movement), undialectical.”

Tracing predominantly thedialecticalinthe history of philosophy, Hegel cites the

views of the Pythagoreans: ...“one, addedto even, makes odd (2+1 = 3);—addedto odd, it makes even (3+1 = 4);—it”(Eins[3])
	  “has the property of making ge-rade (= even), and consequently it mustitself be even. Thus unity contains in it-self different determinations.” (246)

Musical harmony and the philosophy ofPythagoras:

“The subjective, and, in the case of hear-ing, simple feeling, which, however, existsinherently in relation, Pythagoras has at-tributed to the understanding, and he at-tained his object by means of fixed deter-minations.” (282)

Pp. 265--266: the movement of the heav-

enly bodies—their harmony—the har-mony of thesingingheavenly spheresinaudible to us (in thePythago-reans): Aristotle,De coelo, II, 13(and 9)[4]:

...“Fire was placed by the Pythagoreansin the middle, but the Earth was madea star that moved around this central bodyin a circle....” But for them this fire wasnot the sun.... “They thus rely, not onsensuous appearance, but on grounds....These ten spheres”

ten spheres or orbitsor movements of the ten planets: Mer-cury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Sun,Moon, Earth, the Milky Way and theGegenerde[5](—antipode?) invented “foran even number,” for 10[6]

“like all thatis in motion, make a sound; but eachmakes a different tone, according to thedifference in its size and velocity. Thisis determined by the different distances,which bear a harmonious relationship toone another, in accordance with musicalintervals; by this means a harmonioussound (music) arises in the moving spheres(world)....”

Concerning the soul, the Pythagoreansthought “die Seele set: die Sonnenstäub-chen”[7](p. 268) (= dust particle, atom)(Aristotle,De anima, I, 2).”[8]

An allusionto the struc-ture ofmatter!

In the soul—seven circles (elements)as in the heavens. Aristotle,De ani-ma, I, 3—p. 269.

And here immediately are recounted thefables that Pythagoras (who had takenfrom the Egyptians the doctrine of the im-mortality of the soul and the transmi-gration of souls) related about himself, thathis soul had dwelt 207 years in other people,etc., etc. (271)

NB: the linking of thegermsof scien-tific thought with fantasy à la religion,mythology. And nowadays! Likewise,the same linking but the proportionsof science and mythology are different.

More on the theory of numbers of Pytha-goras.“Numbers, where are they? Dispersedthrough space, dwelling in independencein the heaven of ideas? They are notthings immediately in themselves, for athing, a substance, is something quiteother than a number—a body bears noresemblance to it.” 254Quotation|from Aristotle?—Met-aphysik, I, 9, is it not? From SextusEmpiricus? Unclear|.

Pp. 279-280—the Pythagoreans accept the

ether(...“A ray penetrates from thesun through the dense and cold ether,”etc.)

Thus theconjectureabout the etherhas existed for thousands of years, re-maining until now aconjecture. Butat the present time there are alreadya thousand times moresubsurface chan-nelsleading to a solution of the prob-lem, to a scientific determination ofthe ether.

In speaking of the Eleatic school, Hegelsays aboutdialectics:

...“We here” (in der eleatischen Schule[10])“find the beginning of dialectics, i.e.,simply the pure movement of thoughtin Notions; likewise we see the oppositionof thought to outward appearance or sen-suous Being, or of that which is implicitto the being-for-another of this implicit-ness, and in the objective existence we seethe contradiction which it has in itself,or dialectics proper....” (280) See the nextpage.[11]

Here are essentially two determinations(two characteristics, two typical features;Bestimmungen, keine Definitionen[12]) ofdialectics[13]:

α) “the pure movement of thoughtin Notions”;β) “in the (very) essence of objects(to elucidate) (to reveal) the con-tradiction which it (this essence)has in itself (dialecticsproper).”

In other words, this “fragment” of He-gel’s should be reproduced as follows:Dialectics in general is “the pure move-ment of thought in Notions“ (i.e., puttingit without the mysticism of idealism:human concepts are not fixed but areeternally in movement, they pass intoone another, they flow into one another,otherwise they do not reflect living life.The analysis of concepts, the study ofthem, the “art of operating with them”(Engels)[14]always
	  demands study of themovementof concepts, of their inter-connection, of their mutual transitions).

In particular, dialectics is the studyof the opposition of the Thing-in-itself(an sich), of the essence, substratum, sub-stance—from the appearance, from “Be-ing-for-Others.” (Here, too, we see a tran-sition, a flow from the one to the other: theessence appears. The appearance is essen-tial.) Human thought goes endlessly deeperfrom appearance to essence, from essence ofthe first order, as it were, to essence ofthe second order, and so onwithoutend.

Dialectics in the proper sense is thestudy of contradictionin the very essenceof objects:not only are appearances tran-sitory, mobile, fluid, demarcated onlyby conventional boundaries, but thees-senceof things is so as well.

Sextus Empiricus presents the point ofview of the Sceptics as follows:

...“Let us imagine that in a house inwhich there are many valuables, therewere those who sought for gold by night;each would then think that he had foundthe gold, but would not know for certainwhether he had actually found it. Thusphilosophers come into this world as intoa great house to seek the truth, but werethey to reach it, they could not tellwhether they had really attained it....”(288-289)

Xenophanes (the Eleatic) said:

“Did beasts and lions only have hands,Works of art thereby to bring forth, asdo men,They would, in creating divine forms,give to themWhat in image and size belongs to them-

selves....” (289-290)

“What especially characterises Zeno isdialectics, which ... begins with him....”(302)

“We find in Zeno likewise trueobjectivedialectics.” (309)

(310: on the refutation of philosophicsystems: “Falsity must not be demonstrat-ed as untrue because the opposite is true,but in itself....”)

“Dialectics is in general α) external dia-lectics, in which this movement is differ-ent from the comprehension of this move-

ment; β) not a movement of our intelli-gence only, but what proceeds from thenature of the thing itself, i. e., from thepure Notion of the content. The formeris a manner of regarding objects in sucha way that reasons are revealed and aspectsof them shown, by means of which allthat was supposed to be firmly fixed, ismade to totter. There may be reasons whichare altogether external too, and we shallspeak further of this dialectics when deal-ing with the Sophists. The other dialectics,

however, is the immanent contemplationof the object: it is taken for itself, withoutprevious hypothesis, idea or obligation,not under any external conditions, laws,grounds. We have to put ourselves rightinto the thing, to consider the object initself and to take it in the determina-tions which it has. In regarding it thus,it” (er) (sic!) “shows from itself that it con-tains opposed determinations, and thustranscends itself; this dialectics we moreespecially find in the ancients. Subjec-

tive dialectics, which reasons from exter-nal grounds, does justice when it is grantedthat: ‘in the correct there is what is notcorrect, and in the false the true as well.’True dialectics leaves nothing whateverto its object, as if the latter were defi-cient on one side only; but it disintegratesin the entirety of its nature....” (p. 311)

With the “principle of development” inthe twentieth century (indeed, at the endof the nineteenth century also) “all areagreed.” Yes, but this superficial, notthought out, accidental, philistine “agree-ment” is an agreement ofsuch a kindasstifles and vulgarises the truth.—If every-thing develops, then everything passes fromone into another, for development as iswell known is not a simple, universal andeternalgrowth, enlargement(respective dim-inution), etc.—If that is so, then, in thefirst place, evolution has to be under-stoodmore exactly,as the arising andpassing away of everything, as mutualtransitions.—And, in the second place,ifeverythingdevelops, does not thatapply also to the most generalconceptsandcategoriesof thought? If not, it meansthat thinking is not connected with being.If it does, it means that there is a dialec-tics of concepts and a dialectics of cogni-tion which has objective significance. +

“Zeno’s treatment of motion was aboveall objectively dialectical....” (p. 313)

...“Movement itself is the dialectic ofall that is....” It did not occur to Zenoto deny movement as “sensuous certainty,”it was merely a question “nach ihrer (move-ment’s) Wahrheit” (of the truth of move-ment). (313) And on the next page, wherehe relates the anecdote how Diogenes theCynic, of Sinope, refuted movement bywalking, Hegel writes:

...“But the anecdote continues that, whena pupil was satisfied with this refutation,Diogenes beat him, on the ground that,since the teacher had disputed with reasons,the only valid refutation is one derivedfrom reasons. Men have not merely to sat-isfy themselves by sensuous certainty, butalso to understand....” (314)

Zeno has four ways of refuting motion:1. That which is moving to an end must

first coverhalfof the path. And ofthis half, again firstitshalf, and soonad infinitum.

Aristotle replied: space and timeare infinitely divisible (δννάμει[17])(p. 316), but not infinitely divided(ένεργεία[18]), Bayle (Dictionnaire,[19]Vol. IV, article Zeno) calls this replyof Aristotle’spitoyable[20]and says:

...“ifone drew an infinite numberof lines on a particle of matter, onewould not thereby introduce a divisionthat would reduce to an actual infin-ity that which according to him wasonly a potential infinity....”

And Hegel writes (317): “Diessiistgut!”[21]

i.e.,ifone carried out theinfinitedivision to the end!!

...“The essence of space and time is mo-tion, for it is universal; to understandit means to express its essence in the form

of the Notion. As unity of negativity andcontinuity, motion is expressed as the No-tion, as thought; but neither continuitynor discontinuity is to be posited as theessence....” (pp. 318--319)

“To understand means to express in theform of notions.” Motion is the essenceof space and time. Two fundamental con-cepts express this essence: (infinite) con-tinuity (Kontinuitä) and “punctuality”(= denial of continuity,discontinu-ity). Motion is the unity of continuity(of time and space) and discontinuity (oftime and space). Motion is a contra-diction, a unity of contradictions.

Überweg-Heinze, 10th edition, p. 63(§ 20), is wrong when he says that Hegel“defends Aristotle against Bayle.” Hegelrefutes both the sceptic (Bayle) and theanti-dialectician (Aristotle).Cf. Gomperz,Les penseurs de laGrèce, p ...[22], the forcedrecognition, underthe lash, of the unity of contradictions,without recognising dialectics (owing tocowardice of thought)....

2. Achilles will not overtake the tortoise.

“First the half” and so on endlessly.Aristotle answers: he will overtakeit if he be permitted “to overstep thelimits.” (320)And Hegel: “This answer is cor-rect and contains all that can besaid” (p. 321)—for actually the halfhere (at a certain stage) becomes the“limit”....

...“If we speak of motion in general, wesay that the body is in one place and thenit goes to another; because it moves it isno longer in the first, but yet not in the

second; were it in either it would be atrest. If we say that it is between both,this is to say nothing at all, for were itbetween both, it would be in a place, and

this presents the same difficulty. But move-ment means to be in this place and notto be in it; this is the continuity of spaceand time—and it is this which first makesmotion possible.” (Pp. 321--322)

Movement is the presence of a body ina definite place at a given moment andin another place at another, subsequentmoment—such is the objection which Cher-nov repeats (see hisPhilosophical Studies)in the wake ofallthe “metaphysical”opponents of Hegel.This objection isincorrect:(1) it de-scribes theresultof motion, but not mo-tionitself;(2) it does not show, it doesnot contain in itself thepossibilityof mo-tion; (3) it depicts motion as a sum, asa concatenation of states ofrest, that isto say, the (dialectical) contradiction isnot removed by it, but only concealed,shifted, screened, covered over.

“What makes the difficulty is alwaysthought alone, since it keeps apart the mo-ments of an object which in their separa-tion are really united.” (322)

We cannot imagine, express, measure,depict movement, without interrupting con-tinuity, without simplifying, coarsening,dismembering, strangling that which is liv-

ing. The representation of movement bymeans of thought always makes coarse,kills,—and not only by means of thought,but also by sense-perception, and not onlyof movement, but every concept.And in that lies theessenceof dialectics.And preciselythis essenceis ex-pressed by the formula: the unity, identityof opposites.

3. “The flying arrow rests.”

And Aristotle's answer: the errorarises from the assumption that “timeconsists of the individual Nows” (έχτών νϋν) p. 324.

4. Half is equal to the double: motion

measured in comparison with an un-moving body and in comparison witha body moving in theoppositedirection.

At the end of the § on Zeno, Hegel com-pares him toKant(whoseantinomies, hesays, “do no more than Zeno did here”).

The general conclusion of the dialecticof the Eleatics: “the truth is the one, allelse is untrue”—“just as the Kantian phi-losophy resulted in “We know appearancesonly.” On the whole the principle is thesame.” (p. 326)

But there is also a difference.

“In Kant it is the spiritual that de-stroys the world; according to Zeno, theworld of appearance in itself and for itselfhas no truth. According to Kant, it is ourthought, our spiritual activity that is bad;—it shows excessive humility of mind to be-lieve that knowledge has no value....”(327)

The continuation of the Eleatics in Leu-cippus and among theSophists...

After Zeno (? he livedafterHeracli-tus?)[24]Hegel 
	  passes on to Heraclitus andsays:“It” (Zeno’s dialectics) “may, to thatextent, also be called subjective dialec-tics, insofar as it rests in the contemplativesubject, and the one, without this dialec-tics, without this movement, is one ab-stract identity....” (328)

but it was previously said, see thepassage quoted from p. 309, andothers, that Zeno’s dialectics isob-jectivedialectics. Here is some kindof superfine “distinguo.” Cf. thefollowing:

“Dialectics: (α) external dialectics,a reasoning which goes hither andthither, without reaching the soul of the

thing itself; (β) the immanent dialecticsof the object, but (NB) following withinthe contemplation of the subject; (γ) theobjectivity of Heraclitus, i.e., dialecticsitself taken as principle.” (328)

(In Heraclitus): “Here we see land; there is

no proposition of Heraclitus whichI would not have adopted in myLog-ic....” (328)

“Heraclitus says: Everything is be-coming; this becoming is the principle.This is contained in the expression: Beingno moreisthan not-Being....” (p. 333)

“The recognition of the fact that Beingand not-Being are only abstractions de-void of truth, that the first truth is to befound only in Becoming, forms a great ad-vance. The understanding comprehends bothas having truth and validity in isolation;reason on the other hand recognises the onein the other, and sees that in the one itsother” (NB “its other”) “is contained—that is why the All, the Absolute is to bedetermined as Becoming.” (334)

“Aristotle says (De mundo,[26]Chapter 5)

that Heraclitus ‘joined together thecomplete whole and the incomplete’(part)” ... “what coincides and whatconflicts, what is harmonious and whatdiscordant; and from out of them all(the opposite) comes one, and fromone, all.” (335)

Plato, in hisSymposium,[27]puts forwardthe views of Heraclitus (inter alia in theirapplication to music: harmony consistsof opposites), and the statement: “The artof the musician unites the different.”

Hegel writes: this is no objection againstHeraclitus (336), for difference is the es-sence of harmony:

“This harmony is precisely absolute Be-coming, change,—not becoming other, nowthis and then an other. The essentialthing is that each different thing, eachparticular, is different from another, notabstractly so from any other, but fromitsother. Each particular only is, insofaras its other is implicitly contained in itsNotion....”

“So also in the case of tones; they mustbe different, but so that they can alsobe united....” (336) P. 337: incidentallySextus Empiricus (and Aristotle) are reckon-ed among the ... “best witnesses”....

Heraclitus said: “die Zeit ist das erstekörperliche Wesen”[28](Sextus Empiricus)—p. (338)

körperliche[29]—an “unfortunate” expres-sion (perhaps, Hegel says (NB), it waschosen by a sceptic (NB),—but time, hesays, is “das erste sinnliche Wesen”[30]....

...“Time is pure Becoming, as per-ceived....” (338)

In regard to the fact that Heraclitusconsidered fire as a process, Hegel says:“Fire is physical time, it is this absoluteunrest” (340)—and further, in regard tothe natural philosophy of Heraclitus:

...“It” (Natur) “is process in itself....”(344) “Nature is the never-resting, andthe All is the transition out of theone into the other, from division intounity, and from unity into division....”(341)“To understand Nature means to rep-resentitas process....” (339)

Here is what is said to be the narrow-

ness of natural scientists:

...“we listen to their account“ (Natur-forscher[31]), “they only observe and saywhat they see; but this is not true, for un-consciously they transform what is im-mediately seen by means of the Notion.

And the strife is not due to the opposi-

tion between observation and the absoluteNotion, but between the limited rigidnotion and the Absolute Notion. Theyshow that changes are non-existent....”(344-345)

...“Water in its decomposition re-veals hydrogen and oxygen: these havenot arisen for they were already thereas such, as the parts of which the waterconsists” (thus Hegel mimics the na-tural scientists)....

“As we find in all expression of per-ception and experience; as soon as menspeak, there is a Notion present, itcannot be withheld, for in conscious-ness there is always a touch of univer-sality and truth.”

Quite right and important—it is pre-cisely this that Engels repeated in morepopular form, when he wrote that natu-ral scientists ought to know that the re-sults of natural science are concepts, andthat the art of operating with conceptsis not inborn, but is the result of 2,000years of the development of natural scienceand philosophy.[32]The concept of transformation is takennarrowly by natural scientists and theylack understanding of dialectics.

...“He” (Heraclitus) “is the one who firstexpressed the nature of the infinite, andwho first understood nature as infinite initself, i.e., its essence as process....” (346)

On the “concept of necessity”—cf. p.347. Heraclitus could not see truth in“sensuous certainty” (348), but in “necessity”(είμαρμένη[33])—((λόγοζ[34])).

NB||“Absolute mediation” (348)

“The rational, the true, that which Iknow, is indeed a withdrawal from theobjective as from what is sensuous, individ-ual, definite and existent; but what rea-son knows within itself is just as muchnecessity or the universalof being; it isthe essence of thought as it is the essenceof the world.” (352)

368: “The development of philosophy in

history must correspond to the de-velopment of logical philosophy; butthere will still be passages in the lat-ter which are absent in historical de-velopment.”

Here there is a very profound and cor-rect, essentially materialist thought (ac-tual history is the basis, the foundation,the Being, which isfollowedby conscious-ness).

Leucippus says that atoms are invisible“because of the smallness of their body”(369)—Hegel, however, replies that thisis “Ausrede”[35](ibid.), that 
	  “Eins”[36]cannotbe seen, that “das Princip des Eins” “ganzideell”[37](370), and that Leucippus is no“empiricist”, but an idealist.

([Straining to make Leucippus conformto his Logic, Hegel expatiates on the impor-tance, the “greatness” of the principle (368)Fürsichsein,[38]descrying it in Leucippus.It savours in part of stretching a point.][39]

But there is also a grain of truth in it;the nuance (the “moment”) of separateness;the interruption of gradualness; the mo-ment of the smoothing out of contradic-tions; the interruption of continuity—theatom, the one. (Cf. 371 i.f.):—“The oneand continuity are opposites....”

Hegel’s logic cannot beappliedin itsgiven form, it cannot betakenas given.Onemustseparate outfrom itthe logical (epistemological) nuances, afterpurifying them fromIdeenmystik[40]: thatis still a big job.)

“The Atomists are, therefore, generallyspeaking, opposed to the idea of the crea-tion and maintenance of the world bymeans of a foreign principle. It is in thetheory of atoms that natural science firstfeels released from the need for demonstrat-ing a foundation for the world. For if natureis represented as created and held togetherby another, then it is conceived of as notexistent in itself, and thus as having itsNotion outside itself, i.e., its basis isforeign to it, it has no basis as such, it isonly conceivable from the will of another—as it is, it is contingent, devoid of ne-cessity and Notion in itself. In the ideaof the atomists, however, we have the con-ception of the inherency of nature, that isto say, thought finds itself in it....” (372-373)

In the presentation—according to Dio-genes Laertius, IX, § 31-33—of the atomismof Leucippus, the “vortex” (Wirbel— 
	  δίνην)[41]of atoms, Hegel finds nothing of interest(“no interest,” ...“empty representation,”“dim, confused ideas”—p. 377 i.f.).

Hegel’s blindness, the one-sidedness ofthe Idealist!!

Democritus is behandelt[42]by Hegel ina very stiefmütterlich[43]fashion, in allpp. 378-380! The spirit of materialism isintolerable to the idealist!! The words ofDemocritus are quoted (p. 379):

“Warmth exists according to opin-ion (νόμφ) and so do cold and colour,sweet and bitter; only the indivisibleand the void are in accordance withtruth (έτεή)” (Sextus Empiricus,Ad-versus Mathematicos, VII, § 135).[44]

And the conclusion is drawn:

...“We see this much, that Demo-critus expressed the difference betweenthe moments of Being-in-itself andBeing-for-other more distinctly....”(380)

By this “the way is at once opened up”to “the bad idealism,” that ... “meineEmp-findung,mein....”[45]

...“A sensuously notionless manifold offeeling is established, in which there isno reason, and with which this idealismhas no further concern.”

Anaxagoras. Noΰς[47]“the cause of the worldand of all order,” and Hegel elucidates this:

...“Objective thought ... reason in theworld, also in nature—or as we speak ofgenera in nature, they are the universal.A dog is an animal, this is its genus, itssubstantial; the dog itself is this. Thislaw, this understanding, this reason isitself immanent in nature, it is the essenceof nature; the latter is not formed fromwithout as men make a chair.” (381-382)

“Noΰς is the same as soul (Aristotleon Anaxagoras)—p. 394

and ...[48]the elucidation of this1eapfrom the general in natureto thesoul; from objective to subjec-tive, from materialism to idealism.C’est ici que ces extrêmes se touchent(et se transforment!)[49]

On the homoeomeriae[50]of Anaxagoras(particles of the same kind as the wholebody) Hegel writes:“Transformation is to be taken in a

double sense, according to existence andaccording to the Notion....” (403-404)Thus, for instance, it is said that watercan be removed—the stones remain; bluecolour can be removed, red, etc., willremain.

“This is only according to existence;according to the Notion, they only inter-penetrate, it is inner necessity.” Just asone cannot remove the heart by itself fromthe living body without the lungs perish-ing, etc.

“Nature likewise exists only in unity,just as the brain exists only in unity withthe other organs” (404)

whereby some conceive transformationin the sense of the presence of smallqualitatively determined particles andtheir growth (respective diminution)[combination and separation]. Theother conception (Heraclitus)—thetransformation of theoneinto another.(403)

Existence and Notion—are to be dis-tinguished in Hegel approximately asfollows: fact (Being) taken separately,torn from its connection, and connection(the Notion), mutual relation, concat-enation, law, necessity.

415: ...“The Notion is that which thingsare in and for themselves....”

Hegel speaks of grass being the end foranimals, and the latter for men, etc., etc.,and concludes:“It is a circle which is complete in itself,but whose completion is likewise a passinginto another circle; a vortex whose mid-point, that into which it returns, is founddirectly in the periphery of a higher circlewhich swallows it up....” (414)

So far the ancients are said to have fur-nished little: “Universal is a meagre deter-mination; everyone knows of the univer-sal, but not of it as essence.” (416)

“But here we have the beginning ofa more distinct development of the relation-ship of consciousness to Being, the de-velopment of the nature of knowledge asa knowledge of the true.” (417) “The mindhas gone forth to express essence as thought.“(418)

“We see this development of the univer-sal, in which essence goes right over to theside of consciousness, in the so much de-cried worldly wisdom of the Sophists.”(418)

((End of the first volume))[The secondvolume begins with the Sophists.]

[1]The Ionic school, or Miletian school (from the town
	  of Miletus, trading and cultural centre of the ancient world on the coast of
	  Asia Minor), was the earliest school of naturalistic materialism (6th century
	  B.C.) in the history of Greek philosophy. (SeeF. Engels,Dialectics of 
	  Nature, Moscow, 1954, p. 250.)

[2]Pythagorean philosophy(6th-4th. century 
	  B.C.)—an idealist philosophy that considered the essence of all things
	  to lie in numbers. Named after Pythagoras, the founder of a philosophical,
	  religious and political league in Crotona (Southern Italy) that fought for
	  the supremacy of the aristocracy.

[4]Aristotle’sworkDe coelo (On the Heavens)belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of four books that
	  are subdivided into chapters. In modern editions, these books are designated
	  by Roman nvmerals and the chapters by Arabic ones.

[5]Antichthon—Ed.

[6]The number ten was viewed by the Pythagoreans as
	  sacred, as the most perfect number, embracing the entire nature of numbers.

[7]“the soul is solar dust”—Ed.

[8]Aristotle’s workDe anima (On the Soul)belongs to his natural-philosophic writings and consists of three books.

[9]TheEleaticschool(end of 6th-5th century
	  B.C.) was named after the town of Elea in Southern Italy. In contradistinction
	  to the natural dialectic teachings of the Miletian school, and ofHeraclitus,
	  regarding the changeable nature of things, the Eleatic school believed in 
	  their indivisible, immovable, unchangeable, homogeneous, continuous, eternal
	  essence. At the same time, some of the propositions of representatives of 
	  the Eleatic school, and particularly the proofs advanced byZenoconcerning
	  the contradictoriness of motion (the so-called paradoxes of Zeno), despite
	  their metaphysical conclusions, played a positive role in the development of
	  ancient dialectics, having raised the problem of expressing in logical concept
	  the contradictory character of the processes of motion.

[10]In the Eleatic school—Ed.

[12]determinations, not definitions—Ed.

[13]Determinationis the comprehensive conception
	  of the object which characterises its essential aspects and connections with
	  the surrounding world and the laws of its development.Definition,
	  in this case, is the abstract formal-logical determination that takes into
	  account only the external features of the object.

[14]See F. Engels,Anti-Dühring, Moscow, 1959,
	  p. 21. Also seep. 264of this volume.

[15]The reference is to the work of Diogenes Laertius,Lives and Opinions of Famous Philosophers, consisting of ten books.
	  It was published in ancient Greek by G. Gübner, Vols. 1-2, Leipzig, 1830-33.

[16]The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus,Basic Tenets of Pyrrhonism, in three books.

[17]in potentiality—Ed.

[18]inactuality—Ed.

[19]The reference is to Pierre Bayle,Dictionnaire
	  historique et critique (Historical and Critical Dictionary), 4 Vols., 
	  Amsterdam and Leyden,	1740.

[20]pitiful—Ed.

[21]“Thisifis good!”—Ed.

[22]Lenin has in mind the French translation of the
	  first volume of Theodor Gomperz’s workGriechische Denker (Greek Thinkers).

[23]The reference is to § 1 of the book byV. Chernov,Philosophical	and Sociological Studies, Moscow, 1907.

[24]Heraclitus(c. 530-470 B.C.) lived prior to Zeno
	  of Elea (c. 490-480 B.C.). Hegel discusses Heraclitus after the Eleatics because
	  his philosophy, especially his dialectics, was superior to that of the Eleatics,
	  in particular, the dialectics of Zeno. Whereas Eleatic philosophy embodied,
	  in Hegel’s view, the category of being, Heraclitus’ philosophy
	  was an historical expression of the higher, more concrete and genuine category
	  of becoming. This is an example of how Hegel “adapted” the history
	  of philosophy to fit the categories of his logic. At the same time Hegel’s
	  treatment of Heraclitus and the Eleatics reflected the actual law-governed
	  nature of the history of philosophy as a science. Such deviations from the
	  chronological order are quite legitimate in examining the history of individual
	  aspects or categories of philosophy, since in this case their development
	  emerges in a form free from historical accident. Lenin wrote the following
	  in his fragmentOn the Question of Dialecticsabout the “circles”
	  in philosophy: “Ancient: from Democritus to Plato and the dialectics
	  of Heraclitus” and remarks: “Is a chronology of persons essential?
	  No!” (See present volume,p. 360.)

[25]semblance, show—Ed.

[26]The workDe mundo (On the Universe),
	  included in Aristotle’s collected works, was written after Aristotle’s
	  death by an unknown author at the end of the 1st or beginning of the 2nd 
	  century A.D.

[27]Symposium (Feast)—a dialogue byPlato.

[28]“Time is the first corporeal 
	  essence.”—Ed.

[29]corporeal—Ed.

[30]“the first sensuous essence”—Ed.

[31]of natural scientists—Ed.

[32]See F. Engels,Anti-Dühring, Moscow,
	  1959, pp. 21-22.

[33]fate—Ed.

[34]logos—Ed.

[35]“subterfuge”—Ed.

[36]“One”—Ed.

[37]“the principle of the One” is “altogether
	  ideal”—Ed.

[38]Being-for-itself—Ed.

[39]In Lenin’s manuscript these five lines have
	  been crossed out.—Ed.

[40]mysticism of ideas—Ed.[Back to note #14]

[41]Diogenes Laertius (p. 
	  235)—“vertiginem”—Latin translation.—Ed.

[42]treated—Ed.

[43]step-motherly—Ed.

[44]The reference is to the work of Sextus Empiricus,Against Mathematicians, consisting of 11 books, six of which are
	  devoted to a critique of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy
	  and music, and five (Against Dogmatists) to a critique of logic,
	  physics and ethics.

[45]“myfeeling,mine”

[46]A critique of the subjective idealist teachings
	  ofMachon sensations
	  was presented by Lenin in his bookMaterialism and
	  Empirio-Criticism, Chapter 1, §§ 1 and 2 (V. I. Lenin,Materialism
	  and Empirio-Criticism, Moscow, 1960, pp. 32-61).

[47]reason—Ed.

[48]A word has remained undeciphered here.—Ed.

[49]“It is here that these extremes come into
	  contact (and are transformed!).—Ed.

[50]Homoeomeriae — according to Aristotle, a
	  term used by Anaxagoras to denote tiny material elements consisting in their
	  turn of an infinite number of smaller particles and containing all existing
	  properties (“all in everything”). The elements themselves are
	  inert and set in motion by νοΰς (mind, reason), believed
	  by Anaxagoras to be a kind of fine and light matter. He explained any emergence
	  and destruction by the junction and separation of elements. In the extant
	  fragments of Anaxagoras’ works these elements are called “seeds”
	  or “things”; the term homoeomeriae was introduced by Aristotle.

---

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s BookLectures On the Historyof Philosophy:

Volume XIV.Volume II Of the History Of Philosophy

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, pp. 269-300Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany XIITranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:Kevin GoinsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
	  perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. 
	  Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that 
	Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible 
	where they were located in the original manuscript.

VOLUME XIV.

Speaking of the Sophists, Hegel in ex-treme detail chews over the thought thatsophistry contains an element common toall culture (Bildung) in general, our ownincluded, namely, the adducing ofproofs(Gründe) and Gegengründe[2]—“reflectingreasoning”;—the finding of the most di-verse points of viewin everything;((sub-jectivity—lack of objectivity)). In discuss-ing Protagoras and his famous thesis (manis the measure of all things) Hegel placesKantclose to him:

...“Man is the measure of everything,—man, therefore, is the subject in general;the existent, consequently, is not in iso-lation, but is for my knowledge—conscious-ness is essentially the producer of the con-tent in what is objective, and subjectivethinking is thereby essentially active. Andthis view extends even to the most modernPhilosophy, as when, for instance, Kantsays that we only know phenomena, i.e.,that what seems to us to be objective, tobe reality, is only to be considered in itsrelation to consciousness, and does notexist without this relation....” (31)[3]

The second “moment” is objectivity(das Allgemeine[4]),
	  “it is posited byme, but is likewise in itself objec-tively universal, not posited by me....”
	  (32)

Diese “Relativität”[5](32) “Every-thing has a relative truth only” (33),according to Protagoras.

...“Kant’s phenomenon is no more thanan external impulse, anx, an unknown,which first receives these determinationsthrough our feeling, through us. Even ifthere were an objective ground for ourcalling one thing cold and another warm,we could indeed say that they must havediversity in themselves, but warmth andcold first become what they are in ourfeeling. Similarly ... things are, etc. ...thus experience was called a phenome-non....“ (34)

“The world is consequently not onlyphenomenal in that it is for consciousness,and thus that its Being is only one rela-tive to consciousness, but it is likewisephenomenal in itself.” (35)

...“This scepticism reached a much deep-er point in Gorgias....” (35)

...“Hisdialectic” ... that of Gor-gias, the Sophist[many times: p. 36, idemp. 37].

Tiedemann said that Gorgias went fur-ther than the “common sense” of man. AndHegel makes fun of this: every philosophygoesfurtherthan “common sense” forcommon sense is not philosophy. Prior toCopernicus it wascontraryto commonsense to say that the earth goes round thesun. (36)

“It” (der gesunde Menschenverstand[7])“is the mode of thought of its time, con-(36)

...“Gorgias is conscious that they” (Be-ing and not-Being, their mutual sublation)“are vanishing moments; the unconsciousconception has this truth also, but knowsnothing about it....” (40)

“Vanishing moments” = Beingand not-Being. That is a magnifi-cent definition of dialectics!!

...“Gorgias α) justly argues against abso-lute realism, which, because it has a no-tion, thinks it possesses the very thingitself, when actually it possesses only some-thing relative; β) falls into the bad ideal-ism of modern times: ‘what is thoughtis always subjective, and thus not theexistent, since through thought an existentis transformed into what is thought....’” (41)

(and further below (p. 41 i.f.)Kantis again mentioned).

To be added on Gorgias[8]: He puts “either—

or” to the fundamental questions. “Butthat is not true dialectics; it would benecessary to prove that the object mustbe necessarily in one or another determi-nation, not in and for itself. The objectresolves itself only into those determi-nations; but from that nothing followsregarding the nature of the object it-self.” (39)

To be added further on Gorgias[9]:

In the exposition of his view that theexistent cannot be imparted, communi-cated:

“Speech, by which the existent has tobe expressed, is not the existent, what isimparted is thus not the existent, but only

words.” (Sextus Empiricus,AdversusMathematicos. VII. § 83-84)—p.41—Hegel writes: “The existent is also compre-hended as non-existent, but the comprehen-sion of it is to make it universal.” (42)

“Thisindividual cannot be ex-pressed....” (42)

Final words of the section on the Soph-ists: “The Sophists thus also made dia-lectic, universal Philosophy, their object,and they were profound thinkers....” (42)

Socrates is a “world-famed personage”(42), the “most interesting” (ibid.) in thephilosophy of antiquity—“subjectivity ofthought”(42)[“freedom of self-conscious-ness”(44)].

“Herein lies the ambiguity of dia-lectics and sophistry; the objectivedisappears”: is the subjective contin-gent or is there in it (“an ihm selbst”[12])the objective and universal? (43)[13]

“True thought thinks in such a way thatits content is as truly objective as subjec-tive” (44)—and in Socrates and Plato wesee, Hegel says, not only subjectivity (“thereference of any judgment to conscious-ness is held by him”—Socrates—”in commonwith the Sophists”)—but also objectivity.

“Objectivity has here” (in Socrates) “thesense of the universal, existent in and foritself, and not external objectivity” (45)—

idem 46: “not external objectivity but thespiritual universal.”

And two lines further down:

“Kant’s ideal is the phenomenon, notobjective in itself....” (46)Socrates called his methodHebammen-kunst[14]—(p. 64) (derived from his mother,he said) ((Socrates’ mother = midwife))—to help in bringing thoughts to birth.

Hegel’s example: everyone knows, hesays, what Werden is, but it surprises usif we analyse (reflektierend) and find that itis “the identity of Being and not-Being”—“so great a distinction.” (67)

Meno (Plato’s “Meno”)[16]compared Socra-tes to an electric eel (Zitteraal), which makesanyone who touches it “narkotisch”[17](69): and I, too, am “narkotisch” and Icannotanswer you.[18]

...“That which is held by me as truthand right is spirit of my spirit. But whatthe spirit derives thus from itself, whatit so holds, must come from it as the uni-versal, as from the spirit which acts ina universal manner, and not from its pas-sions, interests, likings, whims, aims, in-clinations, etc. These, too, certainly comefrom something inward which is ‘implantedin us by nature,’ but they are only ina natural way our own....” (74-75)

Intelligent idealism is closer to intelligent ma-terialism than stupid materialism.Dialectical idealism instead of intelligent;metaphysical, undeveloped, dead, crude,rigid instead of stupid.

To be elaborated:Plekhanov wrote on philosophy (dialec-tics) probably about 1,000 pages (Beltov +against Bogdanov + against the Kantians +

fundamental questions, etc., etc.).[20]Amongthem,aboutthe large Logic,in con-nection withit,itsthought (i.e.,dialecticsproper, as philosophical sci-ence) nil!!

Protagoras: “man is the measure of allthings.” Socrates: “man, as thinking, is themeasure of all things.” (75)

Xenophon in hisMemorabiliendescribedSocrates better, more accurately and morefaithfully than Plato. (Pp. 80-81)

In connection with the sophisms aboutthe “heap” and “bald,” Hegel repeats thetransition of quantity into quality and viceversa: dialectics. (Pp. 139-140)143-144: At length about the fact that

“language in essence expresses onlythe universal; what is meant, however,is the special, the particular. Hencewhat is meant cannot be said in speech.”(“It”? The most universal word of all.)

Who isit?I. Every person is an I.DasSinnliche?[21]It is auniver-sa1, etc., etc. “This”?? Everyoneis “this.”

Why can the particular not benamed? One of the objects of a givenkind (tables) is distinguished by some-thing from the rest.

“That the universal should in philosophybe given a place of such importance thatonly the universal can be expressed, andthe ‘it’ which is meant, cannot, indicatesa state of consciousness and thought whichthe philosophical culture of our time hasnot yet reached.”

Hegel includes here “the scepticism ofour times” (143)—[Kant’s?]and those whoassert that “sensuous certainty is the truth.”(143)

For das Sinnliche “is a universal.” (143)

Thereby Hegel hits every materialismexceptdialectical materialism.      
		    NB

To call by name?—but the name is acontingent symbol and does not expressSache selbst[22](how can the partic-ular be expressed?) (144)

Hegel seriously “believed,” thought,that materialism as a philosophy wasimpossible, for philosophy is the scienceof thinking, of theuniversal, but theuniversal is a thought. Here he repeatedthe error of the same subjective ideal-ism that he always called “bad” ideal-ism. Objective (and still more, abso-lute) idealism camevery closeto ma-terialism by a zig-zag (and a somersault),even partiallybecame transformed into it.

The Cyrenaics[23]held sensation for thetruth, “the truth is notwhatis in sensation,the content, but is itself sensation.” (151)

“The main principle of the Cyrenaicschool, therefore, is sensation, whichshould form the real criterion of the trueand the good....” (153)

“Sensation is the indeterminate unit”(154), but if thinking is added, then theuniversal appears and “simple subjectivity”disappears.

(Phenomenologists à la Mach & Co.inevitablybecome idealists on thequestion of theuniversal, “law,” “ne-cessity,” etc.)

Another Cyrenaic, Hegesias, “recognised”“this incongruity between sensation anduniversality....” (155)

They confuse sensation as a principleof the theory of knowledge and a prin-ciple of ethics. This NB. But Hegelseparatedthe theory of knowledge.

In regard to Plato’s plan by whichphilosophers ought to rule the state:

...“The territory of history is differentfrom that of philosophy....”

...“We must recognise that action repre-sents at the same time the endeavours ofthe subject as such for particular ends....Allthose particular ends are really only meansfor bringing forth the Idea, becauseitis the absolute power.” (193)

Concerning Plato’s doctrine on ideas:

...“because sensuous perception showsnothing purely, or as it is in itself” (Pha-edo)—p. 213—therefore the body is ahindrance to the soul.

The significance of theuniversaliscontradictory: it is dead, impure, in-complete, etc., etc., but it alone isastagetowards knowledge of theconcrete, for we can never knowthe concrete completely. Theinfinitesum of general conceptions, laws, etc.,gives theconcretein its completeness.

The movement of cognitiontotheobject can always only proceed dia-lectically: to retreat in order to hit

more surely—reculer pour mieux sauter(savoir?).[25]Converging and diverginglines: circles which touch one another.Knotenpunkt[26]= the practice of man-kind and of human history.

(Practice = the criterion of the coin-cidence of one of the infinite aspectsof the real.)

These Knotenpunkte representa unity of contradictions, when Be-ing and not-Being, as vanishingmoments, coincide for a moment,in the given moments of the move-ment (= of technique, of history,etc.)

In analysing Plato’s dialectics, Hegelonce again tries to show the differencebetween subjective, sophistic dialectics andobjective dialectics:“That everything is one, we say of eachthing: ‘it is one and at the same time weshow also that it is many, its many parts

and properties’—but it is thereby said:

‘it is one in quite another respect fromthat in which it is many’—we do notbring these thoughts together. Thus theconception and the words merely go back-

wards and forwards from the one to the

other. If this passing to and fro is performedwith consciousness, it is empty dialectics,which does not unite the opposites anddoes not come to unity.” (232)

P l a t oin the “Sophistes”:

“The point of difficulty, and what weought to aim at, is to show that whatis other is the same, and what is the sameis other, and indeed in the same regardand from the same point of view.” (233)

“But we must be conscious of the factthat the Notion is neither merely the im-mediate in truth, although it is the simple—but it is of spiritual simplicity,essentially the thought which has re-turned into itself (immediately is onlythis red, etc.); nor that it is only thatwhich reflects itself in itself, the thingof consciousness; but is also in itself, i.e.,it is objective essence....” (245)

The concept is not something imme-diate (although the concept is a “simple”thing, but this simplicity is “spiritual,”the simplicity of the Idea)—what is im-mediate is only the sensation of “red”(“this is red”), etc. The concept is not“merely the thing of consciousness”; butis theessence of the object(ge-genständliches Wesen), it is somethingan sich, “in itself.”

...“This conviction of the nature of theNotion, Plato did not ixpress so defi-nitely....” (245)

Hegel dilates at length on Plato’s“Philosophy of Nature,” the ultra-non-sensical mysticism of ideas, such as that“triangles form the essence of sensuousthings” (265), and such mystical non-sense. That is highly characteristic! Themystic-idealist-spiritualist Hegel (likeall official, clerical-idealist philosophyof our day) extols and expatiates onmysticism, idealism in the history ofphilosophy, while ignoring and slight-ing materialism. Cf. Hegel on Democ-ritus—nil!! On Plato a huge massof mystical slush.

Speaking of Plato’s republic and of thecurrent opinion that it is a chimera, Hegelrepeats his favourite saying:

...“What is real is rational. But one mustknow, distinguish, exactly what is real;in common life all is real, but there isa difference between the phenomenal worldand reality....” (274)

Incorrect, says Hegel, is the generallyheld opinion that the philosophy of Aristotleis “realism” (299), (id. p. 311 “empiricism”)in contrast to theidealismof Plato. ((Hereagain, Hegel clearly squeezes in a greatdealunderidealism.))

In presenting Aristotle’s polemic againstPlato’s doctrine on ideas, Hegelsup-pressesits materialistic features. (Cf.322-323and others.)

He has let the cat out of the bag:“Theelevation of Alexander” (Alexander of Mac-

edon, Aristotle’s pupil) “... into ... a godis ... not matter for surprise ... God and

man are not at all so very wide asunder....”(305)

Hegel perceives the idealism of Aris-totle in his idea of god. (326) ((Ofcourse, it is idealism, but more ob-jective andfurther removed, moregeneralthan the idealism of Plato,hence in the philosophy of nature morefrequently = materialism.))

Aristotle’s criticism ofPlato’s “ideas” is a criticismofidealismas ideal-ism in general:forwhence concepts, abstrac-tions, are derived, thencecome also “law” and “ne-cessity,” etc. The idealistHegel in cowardly fashionfought shy of the under-mining of thefoundationsof idealism by Aristotle(in his criticism of Plato’sideas).

Whenoneidealistcriticises the founda-tions of idealism ofanotheridealist,ma-terialismis always thegainer thereby. Cf.Aristotle versus Plato,etc., Hegel versusKant, etc.

“Leucippus and Plato accordingly saythat motion has always existed, but theygive no reason for the assertion.” (Aristot-le,Metaphysik, XII, 6 and 7.) p. 328

Aristotlethuspitifully bringsforward godagainstthe material-ist Leucippus and the idealist Plato.There is eclecticism in Aristotlehere. But Hegelconcealstheweakness for the sake ofmysticism!

Hegel, the supporter of dialectics,could not understand thedialec-ticaltransitionfrommattertomotion,frommattertocon-sciousness—especially the second.Marx corrected the error (or weak-ness?) of the mystic.

Not only isthe transitionfrom matterto conscious-ness dialecti-cal, but alsothat fromsensation tothought, etc.

What distinguishes the dialectical tran-sition from the undialectical transition?The leap. The contradiction. The inter-ruption of gradualness. The unity (iden-tity) of Being and not-Being.

The following passage shows especiallyclearly how Hegel conceals the weaknessof Aristotle’s idealism:“Aristotle makes objects into thoughts;hence, in being thoughts, they exist intruth; that is their ούσία.[27]

“The meaning of this is not, however,that natural objects have themselves thepower of thinking, but as they are subjec-tively thought by me, my thought is thusalso the Notion of the thing, which there-

fore constitutes its substance. But in na-ture the Notion does not exist as thoughtin this freedom, but has flesh and blood;yet it has a soul, and this is its Notion.Aristotle recognises what things in and

for themselves are; and that is their ούσία.The Notion does not exist for itself, but itis stunted by externality. The ordinary definition of truth is: ‘truth is the harmonyof the conception with the object.’ Butthe conception itself is only a conception,I am still not at all in harmony with myconception (with its content); for whenI represent to myself a house, a beam, andso on, I am by no means this content—‘I’ is something other than the conceptionof house. It is only in thought that there ispresent a true harmony between objectiveand subjective;that constitutes me(Hegel’sitalics). Aristotle therefore finds himselfat the most advanced standpoint; nothingmore profound can one desire to know.”(332-333)

“In nature” concepts do not exist “inthis freedom” (in the freedom of thoughtand the fantasy ofman!!). “In nature”they (concepts) have “flesh and blood.”—That is excellent! But it is materialism.Human concepts are thesoulof nature—this is only a mystical way of sayingthat in human concepts nature is reflect-edin a distinctive way(this NB: inadistinctiveanddialecticalway!!).

Pp. 318-337solelyon the Meta-physics of Aristotle!! Everything essen-tial that he has to say against Plato’sidealism issuppressed!! In particu-lar, there is suppressed the question ofexistenceoutsideman and humani-ty!!! = the question of materialism!

Aristotle is an empiricist, but athink-ingone. (340) “The empirical, comprehend-ed in its synthesis, is the speculative No-tion....” (341) (Hegel’s italics.)

The coincidence of concepts with“synthesis,” with the sum, summing upof empiricism, sensations, the senses,isindubitablefor the philosophers ofalltrends.Whencethis coincidence?From God (I, the idea, thought, etc., etc.)or from (out of) nature? Engels was rightin his formulation of the question.[29]

...“The subjective form constitutes theessence of the Kantian philosophy....” (341)

On the teleology of Aristotle....“Nature has its means in itself andthese means are also end. This end innature is its λόγοζ,[30]the truly rational.”(349)

“end” andcause, law,connection,reason

...“Understanding is not only thinkingwith consciousness. There is contained init also the whole, true, profound Notionof nature, of life....” (348)

Reason (understanding), thought,consciousness,without nature, notin correspondence with nature isfalsity = materialism!

It is repulsive to read how Hegel extolsAristotle for his “true speculative notions”(373 of the “soul,” and much more besides),clearly spinning a tale of idealistic (= mys-tical) nonsense.

Suppressed areallthe points on whichAristotlewaversbetween idealism and ma-terialism!!!

Regarding Aristotle’s views on the “soul,”Hegel writes:

“All that is universal is in fact real,as particular, individual, existing for anoth-er” (375)—in other words, the soul.

Aristotle.De anima, II, 5:

“The difference” (between Empfinden andErkennen[31]) “is: that which causes thesensation is external. The cause of this isthat perceptive activity is directed on theparticular, while knowledge has as itsobject the universal; but the universal is,to a certain extent, in the soul itself assubstance. Everyone can therefore thinkif he wishes but sense-perception does notdepend on him, since the necessary con-dition is that the object perceived be pres-ent.” (377)

The crux here—“außen ist”[32]—outsideman, independent of him.That is materialism. And this founda-tion, basis, kernel of materialism,Hegel begins wegschwatzen[33]:

“This is an entirely correct view of sense-perception,” writes Hegel, and he goes onto explain that there is undoubtedly “pas-

sivity” in sense—perception: “it is a matterof indifference whether subjectively orobjectively; in both there is containedthe moment of passivity.... With this mo-ment of passivity, Aristotle does not fall

short of idealism, sense-perception is al-

ways in one aspect passive. That is, how-ever, a bad idealism which thinks thatthe passivity and spontaneity of the minddepend on whether the determination givenis from within or from without, as if there

were freedom in sense-perception; the lat-ter is a sphere of limitation”!!... (377-378)

((The idealist stops up the gap leadingto materialism. No, it is not gleich-
	  gültig[34]whetherfrom withoutorfrom within. This is precisely thepoint! “From without”—that is mat-terialism. “From within” = idealism.And with the word “passivity,” whilekeeping silent about the term (“fromwithout”) in Aristotle, Hegel descri-bed in a different way the samefrom without.Passivity meansprecisely from without!! Hegel re-places the idealism ofsense-percep-tionby the idealism ofthought, butequally by idealism.))

...“Subjective idealism declares that thereare no external things, they are a determi-nation of our Self. This must be admittedin respect to sense-perception. I am passive

in sense-perception, sense-perception issubjective; it is existence, a state, a deter-mination in me, not freedom. Whetherthe sense-perception is external or in me,is a matter of indifference, itexists....”(378)

Then follows the famous analogy of thesoul with wax, causing Hegel to twist andturn like the devil confronted with holywater, and to cry out about it having “sooften occasioned misapprehension.” (378-379)

Aristotle says (De anima, II, 12):

"Sense-perception is the receiving of sen-sible forms without matter” ... “as waxreceives only the impress of the goldensignet ring, not the gold itself, but merelyits form.”

Hegelwrites: ...“In sense-perception

only the form reaches us, without matter.It is otherwise in practical life—in eatingand drinking. In the practical sphere ingeneral we behave as single individuals,

and as single individuals in a determinateBeing, even a material determinate Being,we behave towards matter in a materialway. Only insofar as we are of a material

nature, are we able to behave in such a

way; the point is that our material exist-ence comes into play:” (379)

((A close approach to materialism—andequivocation.))

Hegel gets angry and scolds on accountof the “wax,” saying: “everyone can under-stand it” (380), “we do not get beyond thecrude aspect of the analogy,” (379) etc.

“The soul should by no means be pas-sive wax or receive determinations fromwithout....” (380)

...“It” (die Seele[35]) “changes the form ofthe external body into its own....” (381)

Aristotle, De anima, III, 2:

...“The effect of being perceived and ofsense-perception is exactly one and thesame; but their existence is not the same....”(381)

And Hegel comments:

...“There is a body which sounds and asubject which hears: their existence istwofold....” (382)

But he leaves aside the question ofBeingoutsideman!!! A sophistical dodgefrommaterialism!

Speaking about thinking, and about rea-son (νουζ), Aristotle (De anima, III, 4) says:...“There is no sense-perception inde-

pendent of the body, but νουζ is separablefrom it....” (385) “νουζ is like a book uponwhose pages nothing is actually written”

(386)—and Hegel again becomes irate:

“another much-decried illustration” (386),the very opposite of what he means isascribed to Aristotle, etc., etc.((and the

question of Beingindependentof

mind and of man is suppressed!!))—all thatfor the sake of proving “Aristotle is there-fore not a realist.” (389)

“In this way he who perceives nothing

by his senses learns nothing and under-stands nothing when he discerns anything(ΰεωρή[36]) he must necessarily discern itas a pictorial conception, for such con-ceptions are like sense-perceptions, only

without matter....” (389)

...“Whether the understandingthinks actual objects when it is abs-tracted from all matter requires spe-cial investigation....” (389) And Hegel

scrapesout of Aristotle that ostens-ibly “νουζ[37]and νοητόν[38]are oneand the same” (390), etc. A model

example of the idealistic misrepresen-tations of an idealist!! Distorting Aris-totleintoan idealist of the eighteenth-nineteenth century!!

In regard to the “criterion of truth” oftheStoics—“the conception that is laidhold of” (444-446)—Hegel says that con-sciousness only compares conception withconception (notwith the object—(446):“truth ... is the harmony of object andconsciousness” = “the celebrated definitionof the truth”) and, consequently, the wholequestion is one of the “objective logos, therationality of the world.” (446)

“Thought yields nothing but the formof universality and identity with itself;...hence everything may harmonise withmy thought.” (449)

“Reasons, however, prove to be a hum-

bug; for there are good reasons for every-thing....” (469) “Which reasons should beesteemed as good thereby depends on theend and interest....” (ibidem)

Speaking of Epicurus (342-271 B. C.),Hegelimmediately(before describ-ing his views) adopts a hostile attitudeto materialism and declares:

“It is already (!!) self-evident (!!) thatif sense-perceived Being is regarded asthe truth, the necessity for the Notion isaltogether abrogated, in the absence of

speculative interest everything falls apart,

and, on the contrary, the vulgar viewof things prevails; in point of fact it doesnot go beyond the view of ordinary humanunderstanding, or rather, everything islowered to the level of ordinary humanunderstanding”!! (473-474)

Slanderagainst materialism!! “Ne-cessity for the Notion” is not in theslightest “abrogated” by the theoryof thesourceof cognition andthe concept!! Disagreement with“common sense” is the foul quirkof an idealist.

Epicurus gave the name ofCanonic[40]to the theory of knowledge and the crite-rion of truth. After a brief exposition ofit, Hegel writes:

“It is so simple that nothing can wellbe simpler—it is abstract, but also verytrivial; more or less on the level of ordi-nary consciousness that begins to reflect.It consists of ordinary psychological con-ceptions; they are quite correct. Out of

sense-perceptions we make conceptions asthe universal; thanks to which it becomeslasting. The conceptions themselves (bei

der δόξα, Meinung[41]) are tested by means

of sensations, as to whether they are last-ing, whether they repeat themselves. Thatis quite correct on the whole, but quitesuperficial; it is the first beginning, the

mechanics of conception with respect tothe first sense-perceptions....” (483)

The “first beginning” is forgottenand distorted by idealism.Dia-lecticalmaterialism alonelinkedthe “beginning” with thecontinuation and the end.

NB: p.481—on the significance ofwordsaccording to Epicurus:

“Everything has its evidence, energy,distinctness, in the name first conferredon it” (Epicurus:Diogenes Laertius, X,

§ 33). And Hegel: “The name is somethinguniversal, belongs to thinking, makes themanifold simple.” (481)

“On the objective manner in general

in which the images of external thingsenter into us, and on our relation to exter-nal things, by which conceptions arise—

Epicurus has evolved the following met-aphysical explanation:

“From the surfaces of things there passesoff a constant stream, which cannot bedetected by our senses ... and this be-cause, by reason of the counteracting re-plenishment, the thing itself in its solid-ity long preserves the same arrangementand disposition of the atoms; and the mo-tion through the air of these surfaces whichdetach themselves is of the utmost rapidity,because it is not necessary that what isdetached should have any thickness.” “Thesensation does not contradict such an idea,when we consider” (zusehe) “how imagesproduce their effects; they bring us a cor-respondence, a sympathetic link with ex-ternal things. Therefore something passesout from them which within us is likesomething external.” “And since the ema-nation passes into us, we know of the def-initeness of a sensation; the definite liesin the object and thus flows into us”(pp. 484-485,Diogenes Laertius, X,§ 48-49).

The genius of Epicurus’ conjecture (300B.C., i.e., more than 2,000 years beforeHegel), e.g., on light and its velocity.

Hegel completelyconcealed(NB)themain thing: (NB) the existenceof thingsoutsidethe consciousnessof man andindependentof it

—all that Hegelsuppressesand merelysays:

...“This is a very trivial way of repre-senting sense-perception. Epicurus electedto take the easiest criterion of the truth—acriterion still in use—inasmuch as it is notapprehended by sight, namely: that it doesnot contradict what we see or hear. For intruth such matters of thought as atoms, thedetachment of surfaces, and so forth, arebeyond our powers of sight and hearing;[cer-tainly we manage to see and to hear some-thing different][42]but there is abundance ofroom for what is seen and what is conceivedor imagined to exist alongside of one anoth-er. If the two are allowed to fall apart, theydo not contradict each other; for it is notuntil we relate them that the contradic-tion becomes apparent....” (485-486)

Hegel hasavoidedEpicurus’ theoryof cognition and begun to speak ofsome-thing else, which Epicurus does nottouch onhereandwhich is com-patiblewith materialism!!

P. (486):Error, according to Epicurus, proceedsfrom aninterruptionin movement (inthe movement from the object to us, tosense-perception or to conception?).

“It is impossible,” Hegel writes, “to have amore meagre (theory of knowledge).” (486)

Everything becomesdürftig,[43]if it is distorted and despoiled.

The soul, according to Epicurus, is a“certain” arrangement of atoms. “This iswhat Locke also (!!!) said.... These areempty words ...“ (489) ((no, they are theguess-work of genius andsignposts forscience, but not for clericalism)).

NB.NB.(489), id. (490):

Epicurus ascribes to the atoms a“krummlinigte”Bewegung,[46]this according to Hegel is “most arbitrary

and wearisome” (489) in Epicurus.—((and the “God” of the idealists???)).

“Or else Epicurus altogether denies No-tion and the Universal as the essential...”(490) although his atoms “themselves havethis very nature of thought”... “the incon-sistency ... which all empiricists are guil-ty of....” (491)

Thisavoidsthe essence ofmaterialismand material-ist dialectics.

“In Epicurus there is no ... final end inthe world, wisdom of a Creator; everythingconsists of events, which are determinedby the chance (??) external (??) comingtogether of configurations of atoms....” (491)

And Hegel simplyhurls abuseatEpicurus: “His thoughts on particular as-pects of Nature are, however, in them-selves feeble....” (492)

And immediately afterwards is apolemicagainst the “Naturwissenschaft” heute,[47]which, like Epicurus, allegedly judges “byanalogy,” and “explains” (492)—e.g., lightas “vibrations of the ether....” “This is ananalogy quite in the manner of Epicu-rus....” (493)

((Modernnatural sciencever-sus Epicurus,—against (NB) Hegel.))

In Epicurus, “the kernel of the matter,the principle, is nothing else than theprinciple of our usual natural science....”(495) ... “it is still the manner which liesat the basis of our natural science....” (496)

Correct is only the reference tothe ignorance of dialectics in gen-eral and of the dialectics of con-cepts. But the criticism ofma-terialismis schwach.[48]

“Of this method (of Epicurean philosophy)we may say in general that it likewisehas a side on which it possesses value.

Aristotle and the more ancient philosopherstook their start in natural philosophy fromuniversal thought a priori, and from this

developed the Notion. This is the one side.The other side is the necessary one thatexperience should be worked up into uni-versality, that laws should be determined;that is to say, that the result which fol-lows from the abstract Idea should coin-cide with the general conception to whichexperience and observation have led. The

a priori is with Aristotle, for instance,most excellent, but not sufficient, becauseit lacks connection with and relation toexperience and observation. This develop-

ment of the particular to the general isthe discovery of laws, natural forces and

so on. It may be said that Epicurus is theinventor of empirical natural science, ofempirical psychology. In contrast to the

Stoic ends, conceptions of the understand-ing, is experience, the sensuous present.There we have abstract, limited understand-

ing, without truth in itself, and thereforewithout the presence and reality of nature;here we have this sense of nature, whichis more true than these other hypotheses.”(496-497)

(THIS ALMOST COMPLETELY AP-PROACHES DIALECTICAL MAT-ERIALISM.)

The importance of Epicurus—the strug-gle againstAberglauben[49]of theGreeks and Romans (498)—andmodern priests??all this nonsense about whether a hare ranacross the path, etc. (and the good Lord?).

“And from it” (the philosophy of Epi-curus), “more than anything, those con-ceptions which have altogether denied thesupersensuous have proceeded.” (498)

||But this is good only for “end-lichen”[50]....“With superstition therealso passed away self-dependent Con-nection and the world of the Ideal.”(499)

This NOTA BENE.

P.499:Epicurus on thesoul: thefiner(NB) atoms, their morerapid(NB)motion, theirconnection(NB)etc., etc., with the body (DiogenesLaertius, X, § 66; 63-64)—very naïveand good!—but Hegel becomes irate, hehurls abuse:“meaningless talk,” “emptywords,” “no thoughts.” (500)

The Gods, according to Epicurus, are“das Allgemeine”[51](506) in general—“theyconsist partly in number” as number,i.e., abstraction from the sensuous....

“In part, they” (the gods) “arethe perfect-ed type of man,which, owing to the simi-larity of the images, arises from the con-tinuous confluence of like images on oneand the same subject.” (507)

Speaking ofScepticism, Hegel pointsto its apparent “invincibility” (Unbezwing-lichkeit) (538):

“If anyone actually desires to be a Scep-tic, he cannot be convinced, or be broughtto a positive philosophy, any more than hewho is paralysed can be made to stand.” (539)

“Positive philosophy in relation to it”(den denkenden Skeptizismus[54]) “mayhave this consciousness: it contains in itselfthe negative of Scepticism; Scepticism isnot opposed to it, nor outside it, but isa moment of it; but it contains the negativein its truth, as it is not present in Scepti-cism.” (539)

(The relation of philosophy to Scepti-cism:)“Philosophy is dialectical, this dialecticis change; the Idea, as abstract Idea, isthe inert and existent, but it is only trueinsofar as it grasps itself as living; thisis that it is dialectical in itself, in orderto transcend that quiescence and inertness.Hence the philosophic idea is dialecticalin itself and not contingent; Scepticism,

on the contrary, exercises its dialecticcontingently—for just as the material, thecontent comes before it, it shows that itis negative in itself....” (540)

The old (ancient) Sciepticism has to bedistinguished from thenew(only Schulzeof Göttingen is named). (540)

Ataraxie (imperturbability?) as the idealof the Sceptics:

“Pyrrho once pointed out to his fellow-passengers on board a ship, who were fright-ened during a storm, a pig, which remainedquite indifferent and peaceably ate on,saying to them: in such imperturbahilitythe wise man must also abide” (DiogenesLaertius, IX, 68)—pp. 551-552.

“Scepticism is not doubt. Doubt is justthe opposite of the tranquillity that isthe result of scepticism.” (552)

...“Scepticism, on the contrary, is indif-ferent to the one as well as to the other....”(553)

Schulze-Aenesidemus passes off for Scep-ticism the statement that everything sen-suous is truth (557), but the Sceptics didnot say so: one must sich danach richten,

orientate oneself by the sensuous, but thatis not the truth. The new Scepticism doesnotdoubt the reality of things. The oldScepticism does doubt the reality of things.

Tropes (turns of speech, arguments, etc.)of the Sceptics:

everything inSextusEmpiricus(second cen-tury A. D.)

the earth going roundthe sun or vice versa, etc.

“These sceptical tropes, in fact,concernthat which is called a dogmatic philosophy(and in accordance with its nature sucha philosophy must display itself in allthese forms) not in the sense of its havinga positive content, but as asserting some-thing determinate as the absolute.” (575)

Hegelagainst the absolute!Here we have the germ of dialectical mat-erialism.

“To the criticism which knows nothingin itself, nothing (not nichts) (sic!!)[56]ab-solute, all knowledge of Being-in-itself,as such, is held to be dogmatism, whileit is the worst dogmatism of all, becauseit maintains that the ‘I,’ the unity of self-consciousness, opposed to Being, is in andfor itself, and that what is ‘in itself’ inthe outside world is likewise so, and there-fore that the two absolutely cannot cometogether.” (576)

“These tropes hit dogmatic philosophy,which has this manner of representing oneprinciple in a determinate proposition asdeterminateness. Such a principle is alwaysconditioned; and consequently contains dia-lectics, the destruction within it of itself.”(577) “These tropes are a powerful weaponagainst the philosophy of reason.” (ib.)

Sextus, for example, reveals the dialec-tics of the concept of apoint(der Punkt).A point has no dimensions? That meansthat it isoutsidespace! It is the limitof space in space, a negation of space, and

at the same time “it touches space”—“butat the same time it is also in itself some-thing dialectical.” (579)

“These tropes ... are powerless againstspeculativeideas, because the latter containwithin themselves adialecticalmomentand theabrogationof the finite.” (580)

End of Volume XIV (p. 586).

[1]Sophists(from the Greeksophos—a
	  wise man)—the designation (since the second half of the 5th century B.C.)
	  for professional philosophers, teachers of philosophy and rhetoric. The Sophists
	  did not constitute a single school. The most characteristic feature common
	  to Sophists was their belief in the relativity of all human ideas, ethical
	  standards and values, expressed by Protagoras in the following famous statement:
	  “Man is the measure of all things, of what is, that it is, and of what
	  is not, that it is not.” In the first half of the 4th century B.C.,
	  sophism disintegrated and degenerated into a barren play with logical conceptions.

[2]counterproofs—Ed.

[3]Hegel,Werke, Bd. XIV, Berlin, 1833.—Ed.

[4]theuniversal—Ed.

[5]this “relativity”—Ed.

[6]Phenomenologism—a branch of subjective
	  idealism that considers phenomena to be only the totality of man’s sensations.
	  The Machists were phenomenalists. An important role in the Marxist criticism
	  of phenomenologism was played by Lenin’s bookMaterialism and Empirio-Criticism(Collected Works, Vol. 14).

[7]common sense—Ed.

[8]This excerpt was made by Lenin somewhat later in
	  outlining the philosophy ofSocrates(pp. 43-44 of Hegel;see
	  p. 273of this volume).—Ed.

[9]This excerpt was made by Lenin in outlining the
	  philosophy of Socrates (p. 69 of Hegel; seep. 274of this volume).—Ed.

[10]See § 27 ofFeuerbach’sPrinciples
	  of the Philosophy of the Futurefor his views on being and essence.

[11]The reference is to the following statement of
	  Feuerbach: “At the beginning of phenomenology we immediately come across
	  a contradiction between the word which represents the universal, and the thing,
	  which is always a particular.” (See § 28 of Feuerbach’sPrinciples
	  of the Philosophy of the Future.)

[12]“in it itself”—Ed.

[13]Following this paragraph in the MS. is an excerpt
	  on Gorgias’ philosophy, beginning with the words: “To be added 
	  on Gorgias....” (Seep. 271of this volume.)—Ed.

[14]the art of midwifery—Ed.

[15]Becoming = not-Being and Being.—Ed.

[16]Meno—Plato’s dialogue directed
	  against the Sophists. It is considered to be one of Plato’s early works.

[17]“drugged”—Ed.

[18]Following this paragraph in the MS. is an excerpt
	  on Gorgias’ philosophy, beginning with the words: “To be added
	  further on Gorgias....” (Seep. 272of this 
	  volume.)—Ed.

[19]very well put—Ed.

[20]Lenin is referring to the following philosophical
	  works byPlekhanov:
	  N. Beltov,The Development
	  of the Monist View of History,
	  published as a separate volume in 1895 in St. Petersburg (seeSelected
	  Philosophical Works, Vol. 1, Moscow, 1960, pp. 542-782); articles against
	  Bogdanov appearing in Social-Democratic periodicals and published in the collection
	  entitled “From Defence to Attack” (1910); articles against the Kantians E.
	  Bernstein, C. Schmidt and others appearing in the journalDie Neue Zeitand published in the collection: N. Beltov, “Criticism of Our Critics,” St.
	  Petersburg, 1906; and “Fundamental Questions of Marxism,” published as 
	  a separate volume in 1908 in St. Petersburg.

[21]the sensuous—Ed.

[22]the very essence of the
	  thing—Ed.

[23]Cyrenaics-adherents, of an ancient Greek
	  school of philosophy, founded in the 5th century B.C. by Aristippus of Cyrene
	  (North Africa). In the theory of knowledge, the Cyrenaics adhered to sensualism.
	  They asserted that objective truth does not exist and that, with certainty,
	  one can only speak of subjective sensations. In Cyrenaicism, the sensualist
	  theory of knowledge is supplemented by sensualist ethics—the doctrine
	  of sensual satisfaction as the basis of morality. The Cyrenaic school produced
	  a number of representatives of ancient atheism.

[24]Cf. Überweg-Heinze, § 88, p. 122 (10th edition)—
	  and also about them in Plato’sTheaetetus.[24a]Their (the Cyrenaics’) scepticism
	  and subjectivism.—Ed.

[24a]The reference is to § 38 “The Aristippian
	  and Cyrenaic or Hedonistic School” in Überweg’s book:Grundriss
	  der Geschichte der Philosophie des Altertums. 10. Auflage, Berlin, 1909.
	  (F. Überweg,Outline of the History of Ancient Philosophy, 10th
	  edition, Berlin, 1909). In the dialogueTheaetetus, Plato expounds
	  his mystical theory of knowledge, calling cognition the rise of reason into
	  the realm of ideas; this rise is like recollection since, according to Plato,
	  reason, the soul, by their origin, belong to this supersensual world of ideas.

[25]to fall back, the better to leap (to know?)—Ed.

[26]nodal point—Ed.

[27]substance—Ed.

[28]See L. Feuerbach,Against Dualism of Body
	  and Soul, Flesh and Spirit.

[29]SeeF. Engels,Anti-Dühring, 
	  Moscow, 1959, p. 54.

[30]logos—Ed.

[31]sense-perception (sensation) and cognition—Ed.

[32]“is external”—Ed.

[33]to talk out of existence—Ed.

[34]A matter of indifference—Ed.

[35]the soul—Ed.

[36]perceives—Ed.

[37]reason—Ed.

[38]what is apprehended by reason—Ed.

[39]Stoics—adherents 
	  of an ancient Greek school of philosophy arising about the 3rd century B.C. and existing
	  until the 6th century A.D. The Stoics recognised two elements in the universe:
	  an enduring element—matter without quality; and an active one—reason,
	  logos, god. In logic, the Stoics proceeded from the assumption that the source
	  of all cognition is sensuous perception and that a conception can be true only
	  if it is a faithful and full impression of the object. The Stoics taught,
	  however, that perceptual judgment arises only as a result of agreement between
	  the mind and a true conception. This the Stoics called “catalepsy”
	  (or “seizure”) and viewed it as a criterion for truth.

[40]In the manuscript the word “Canonic”
	  is linked by an arrow with the word “It” at the beginning of the
	  following paragraph.—Ed.

[41]in opinion—Ed.

[42]The words in brackets are missing in Lenin’s
	  manuscript.—Ed.

[43]meager—Ed.

[44]also—Ed.

[45]difference—Ed.

[46]“curvilinear”
	  motion—Ed.

[47]“natural science” today—Ed.

[48]feeble—Ed.

[49]superstitions—Ed.

[50]“finite” things—Ed.

[51]“the universal”—Ed.

[52]See L. Feuerbach,Lectures 
	  on the Essence of Religion: “the God of man is nothing but the deified being of
	  man.” (L. Feuerbach,Werke, Bd. 6, Berlin, 1840, S. 21.)

[53]Sceptics—in this case,
	  adherents of the ancient Greek philosophical school founded by Pyrrho (c. 365-275 B.C.).
	  The best known of the ancient Sceptics were Aenesidemus and Sextus Empiricus
	  (2nd century A.D.). [See also:“Scepticism and Dogmatism”]Tropes—the designation for the reasons
	  for doubt advanced by the ancient Sceptics (ten tropes) and later supplemented
	  (five tropes) by Agrippa. By means of these reasons the Sceptics tried to
	  prove the impossibility of cognising things and the absolute relativity of
	  all perceptions.

[54]thinking scepticism—Ed.

[55]raised—Ed.

[56]Lenin’s remark in parentheses was evoked
	  by a misprint in the German text, which had nicht (not) instead of nichts
	  (nothing) before the word “absolute.”—Ed.

---

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Conspectus of Hegel’s BookLectures On the Historyof Philosophy:

Volume XV. Volume III Of The History Of Philosophy(The End Of Greek Philosophy, Medievaland Modern Philosophy up to Schelling, pp. 1-692)

Written:1915Source:Lenin’sCollected Works, 4th Edition, Moscow, 1976,Volume 38, pp. 301-302Publisher:Progress PublishersFirst Published:1930 inLenin Miscellany XIITranslated:Clemence DuttEdited:Stewart SmithTranscription & Markup:Kevin GoinsPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive (2008).You may freely copy, distribute, display and 
	  perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. 
	  Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.

Note that this document has undergone special formating to ensure that 
	Lenin’s sidenotes fit on the page, marking as best as possible 
	where they were located in the original manuscript.

...“The return to God....” (5),[2]“self-consciousness is absolute Essence”..., “theworld-spirit”... (7), “Christian religion”....(8)And amass of thin porridgeladled out about God.... (8-18)

But this philosophical idealism, open-ly, “seriously” leading to God, is morehonest than modern agnosticism withits hypocrisy and cowardice.

A. Philo—(about the time of the birth

of Christ), a Jewish savant, a mystic,“finds Plato present in Moses” (19),etc. The main point is “the knowl-edge of God” (21), etc. God is λόγοζ,[3]“the epitome of all Ideas,” “pure Be-ing” (22) (“according to Plato”)....(22) Ideas are “angels” (messengersof God).... (24) The sensuous world,however, “as with Plato” = ούχ όν[4]== not-Being. (25)

B. Cabbala,[5]theGnostics[6]——————

C. Alexandrian philosophy[7]—(= eclectic

ism) (=Platonists, Pythagoreans, Ari-stotelians). (33, 35)

Eclectics are either uncultured men, orcunning (die klugen Leute[8]—they take thegood from every system, but...

—they collect every good but do not have“consistency of thought, and consequentlythought itself.” (33)

They developed Plato....

“The Platonic universal, which is inthought, accordingly receives the significa-tion of being as such absolute essence”(33)....

[1]Neo-Platonists—followers of the mystical
	  philosophical doctrine, the basis of which wasPlato’sidealism. Neo-Platonism
	  (Plotinus was the head of this school) developed during the period from the
	  3rd to the 5th centuries and was a combination of theStoic,EpicureanandScepticaldoctrines 
	  with the philosophy of Plato andAristotle. The influence
	  of neo-Platonism was strong in the Middle Ages; it was expressed in the doctrines
	  of the leading medieval theologians and is also to be seen in certain trends
	  of modern bourgeois philosophy.

[2]Hegel,Werke,
	  Rd. XV, Berlin, 1836.—Ed.

[3]logos—Ed.

[4]non-existent—Ed.

[5]Cabbala—a medieval mystical religious
	  “doctrine” prevalent among the most fanatical followers of Judaism,
	  as well as among adherents of Christianity and Islam. The basic thought of
	  this doctrine is the symbolic interpretation of the Holy Scripture, whose
	  every word and number acquires special mystical importance in	the eyes of 
	  the Cabbalists.

[6]Gnostics—followers of mystical, 
	  religious-philosophical doctrines during the early centuries of our era. They
	  tried to unite Christian theology and various theses of Platonic, Pythagorean
	  and Stoic philosophy.

[7]Alexandrian philosophy—several philosophical
	  schools and trends that arose during the early centuries of our era in Alexandria,
	  Egypt. Their distinguishing feature was their attempt to unite Plato’s
	  and Aristotle’s philosophy and the mystical Eastern cults.

[8]clever people—Ed.

[9]This entry was made by Lenin in German on the back
	  cover of the notebook containing the conspectus of Hegel’s bookLectures
	  on the Philosophy of History.—Ed.

[10]Hegel,Werke, Bd. XIV, Berlin, 1833.—Ed.